Poor Chord Overstreet! The Glee actor's option to become a series regular wasn't renewed for a second season. The bloated show sure needed to get rid of some of the dead weight. This got us thinking: Surely there are some other shows that could use a bit of pruning, no?

The blonde moptop was going places on TV's Glee until he abruptly wasn't. Also today:…
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In the excitement of its initial success, Glee hired too many actors and created too many new characters while simultaneously drawing some established characters (namely the brilliant Brittany) out of the shadows. While Chord isn't necessarily packing his bags just yet he probably should have been fired outright. He never really stood out, didn't do much of anything, and wasn't central to any of the major plot points (which, on Glee are as fleeting as a speck of glitter in the wind, but still). We're here to suggest a few more actors who should be handed their walking papers.

Brian's Picks

January Jones on Mad Men: My hatred of January Jones is well established, but there are so many reasons why Betty Draper needs to be written out of the show. Well, not entirely, since as long as Don has a relationship with his kids he'll have to have a bit of a relationship with their mother. However, the longer Don and Betty are divorced and with Don embarking on a new relationship in the next season, Betty's already tenuous connection to the action at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce grows weaker and weaker. Oh, and then there is the fact that Ms. Jones simply cannot act. That doesn't help her case.

Everyone has them: the actress who appears on screen and immediately creates a feeling of…
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Scott Adsit on 30 Rock: I have watched every season of 30 Rock and still I had to IMDb the show to find out this character's name and the actor that plays him. Apparently the character is Pete Hornberger, he's the bald one who is always doing things that you completely forget about as soon as he's done them. I can't think of one good joke that Pete made or story he's been a part of. Time for him to hit the road and give that dreamy Cheyenne Jackson some more screen time. Oh, and have the gays forgiven Tracy Morgan yet? Maybe Adsit should take him with him on the way out the door.

Rutina Wesley on True Blood: Ugh, Tara. She only has one response to everything, annoyed skepticism. We have seen Tara get all pissed off about everything from vampires to werewolves to her cousin being a drug dealer. Yawn. And now she's suddenly a lesbian who moved away? Let's just let her stay away for good, shall we? After all, she's the only character left on the show who doesn't have any powers. We want to see powers, not Tara going, "Oh hell no" for the 19 billionth time.

A hero's journey from "When Mom and Dad get back, I'm gonna tell them everything. I…
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Richard's Picks

Rob Lowe on Parks & Recreation: It was fun for a few episodes seeing our beloved Sam Seaborn (now Chris Traeger) demoted from the White House to flyover municipal politics, but pretty soon his manic positivity shtick became just that, an overplayed one-note joke that befits a guest star far better than a series regular. Parks & Recreation succeeds largely because its out-there characters also manage to seem like real human beings. Not so for this weird perk-robot person. Lowe's a charming actor who deserves his own series (Aaron Sorkin should cast him as a network exec or rival anchor on his new cable news show), but Parks & Recreation, or at least this particular character, is not the right fit. Still, we'll always have "Stop. Pooping."

Rico Rodriguez on Modern Family: On a show that often treads that verrry narrow line between cute and cloying, Rodriguez's sensitive puffalump Manny is almost consistently in the latter category. It's no knock on Rodriguez, a child actor who actually seems to get the jokes, it's just that once we figured out after one or two episodes what Manny's whole deal was — he's a hopeless romantic with an oft-wounded heart — the whole Wise Beyond His Years thing got stale and obvious. There's always some precocious fucking kid running around on movies and TV shows, but I foolishly and briefly thought Modern Family better than that. I'd say get rid of Ariel Winter's Alex for the same reason, only the bickering with her sister sorta redeems her. But Manny can go, definitely. We get it, ha ha. Moving on. Send him to boarding school or something. A boarding school for annoying sadsack weirdos.

Randy Jackson on American Idol: OK, so he's not a character on a scripted show, only he sort of is? All he says are his horrible "catchphrases" like "Yeah yeah" and "I don't know dawg" and "For me for you." Everything else is nonsense words that mean nothing. If you're going to have big-time celebs like Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez tossing out boring platitudes to the squiggling singtestants, there needs to be someone else there to be a bit sharper. And Randy Jackson is anything but sharp. I think it's time they had a woman judge be the acerbic-but-always-right one. Somebody get Diane Warren drunk and make her sign a contract. And then keep her drunk.